Chapter 15 Maeve
MAEVE
He dragged the knife down my cheek, hard enough that I felt the tension of the blade against my skin but not hard enough to actually hurt.
Yet.
Hold still, M. Hold very, very still.
June’s voice was a comfort. I wasn’t alone. Had she heard my voice at the end? Had I made her feel less alone?
“You know what I think?” the Observer asked.
It was hard not to shrink away from him.
The Scream mask’s drooping eyes and mouth hole were terrifying up close, like a face melting right in front of me.
“I think you like this. You’d never say it out loud because the world would judge you, tell you how fucked up you are, how anti-feminist.”
He practically spit the last word, his disgust obvious.
“I chose to be here.”
“Exactly,” he said. “You even consented, remember?”
I consent to be hunted.
I consent to be stripped.
I consent to be marked.
I consent to be owned.
He was right. I’d consented. I’d been a fool to think I wasn’t going to end up chained to the wall, naked and vulnerable like the other girls. Or maybe deep down I’d just assumed — hoped — it would be at the hands of the Butchers.
The Observer’s face was close to mine now. Close enough to bite if he hadn’t been wearing the mask.
“You like being hunted.” The point of his knife dug into my neck as he got more animated, and I felt a hot trickle of blood leak down my throat.
Terror was a paralyzing agent, and I held as still as I could.
“It would be so much easier if you little cunts would just admit it. If you’d just admit that you want to be controlled, that you want to be dominated.”
Not like this. Not by you.
I wanted to scream it in his face but I didn’t dare move.
My neck burned and I realized he was dragging the tip of his knife down my throat, drawing blood along the way.
Death was a whisper away, my body coiled tight with the primal urge to fight and scream.
Don’t you dare, M. Don’t you dare.
“Everything was easier when everyone just acknowledged the way things are, before we fucked everything up by telling each other what we all wanted to hear.” The Observer’s eyes had a feverish shine, his words more than a little manic.
And then, in the distance, I heard footsteps.
Not walking.
Running.
The sicko holding a knife to my throat didn’t seem to hear it, but Meathead looked over his shoulder and shifted on his feet.
“Someone’s coming, boss.”
The Observer shook his head, like he was trying to shake off a dream. “What?”
“Someone’s coming,” Meathead repeated.
The Observer’s knife was still against my neck, the blood cooling on my skin.
He hesitated, a terrifying hunger in his eyes, then stepped away. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I blinked, hardly daring to believe they were going to leave.
Mr. Skinny was already merging with the shadows, but the Observer cast one more glance back at me as they walked away.
“Until we meet again, bitch.”
I practically held my breath as he joined Mr. Skinny and Meathead, all of them becoming one with the darkness in a matter of seconds.
I didn’t have long to be relieved. The footsteps that had driven them away had gotten louder. Whoever was on their way was close now, and I struggled against the chains around my wrists, desperate to escape before one of the other teams found me.
It took about two seconds to realize my struggle was futile. There was no way out of the cuffs around my wrists without a key.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to take slow deep breaths.
Whatever came next, I needed to think.
I opened my eyes and trained my gaze in the direction of the thundering footsteps headed my way.
I had to face what was coming.
Three shadows appeared in the tunnel, opposite the direction the Scream team had gone. At first I couldn’t make out anything but the shapes of their bodies in the darkness.
Then they ran into the glow of the red light hanging from the ceiling a few feet from where I hung and I saw them clearly: three huge inked men wearing bone masks.
Monsters to some.
But to me, salvation.